FROM: BUSHBUNNYBRENDA, Brenda Lange DATE: Decem­ber 28, 2013

TRIPLETRESCUE A 5 DAYCHALLENGE

On Tues­day, 24th, I received a call from the Balama Doc­tor, say­ing he urgently needed baby for­mula, as the hos­pi­tal had none. I had no idea until I took it to him, that a mother had come in from 15 miles away car­ry­ing 12 day old TRIPLETGIRLS, each weigh­ing 4.4 lbs. The uncle had brought her in on the back of his bicy­cle, for the hus­band seemed unin­ter­ested in help­ing. The mother’s breast milk was min­i­mal due to her mal­nour­ished state. I imme­di­ately offered our only avail­able widow’s house for her to live in, as the Doc­tor told her these cute lit­tle girls have lit­tle chance of sur­vival unless she stays in Balama town where for­mula and med­ical help are avail­able. She stated she has 4 other small chil­dren at home, with 2 of them being twins. We explained that the whole fam­ily can come and stay for up to a year, to get these lit­tle ones strong and healthy.

Her mother, uncle, and 2 other rel­a­tives arrived, and agreed she needed to stay, but she feared the wrath of her hus­band if she left with­out his per­mis­sion. We took her whole fam­ily back to her vil­lage in one of our trucks to present the idea to the hus­band, but he could not be found.

She agreed to send a mes­sage to us on Thurs­day, as we told her we’d return for her fam­ily if he agreed to let her come.

On Thurs­day, late after­noon, the mes­sage was that he had never returned to the house, and she was still afraid to leave. I made the deci­sion to send sup­plies to her on Fri­day, 27th, know­ing her milk for­mula would soon run out. Five miles out of Balama, our truck was met by a heavy rains, drop­ping 1.5 inches in next 2 hours. On slip­pery clay roads, the only thing you can do is find a flat spot and SIT till the rains stop. Oth­er­wise, the truck could eas­ily slip off the nar­row, sin­gle lane road into a ditch of fast run­ning water. The road to the triplets vil­lage was now flooded and unsafe for travel. Our truck had to return with­out vis­it­ing this family.

Sat­ur­day, the sun peaked it’s head out so I dis­patched Manuel, my best off road dri­ver; Dominica, our Women’s Pas­tor, and a guard in our 4 wheel drive Land Cruiser to take sup­plies to this mother and see if she would come with us. I was SUPERRELIEVED when Manuel called say­ing she wants to return with our truck. LOCALGOVERNMENTOFFICIALS and her fam­ily stated they would deal with the hus­band when he returned, and she was to go with our staff for the safety of the babies. Before they could leave, the hus­band showed up, and agreed to come with them to Balama to see where they would be stay­ing. He had been with his “2nd wife” for 5 days, so he got an ear full from me and Social Ser­vices when he arrived in Balama about respon­si­bil­i­ties of being a good father.

Any­way, what is impor­tant is that the babies are safe, along with her 7 year old twin boys, and girls 10 and 3years old. I don’t have all their names as it has been a very hec­tic day get­ting them set­tled, but I did get photos!!!!

LITTLEFAMILYWATCHESOVERSLEEPINGTRIPLETS

Just 1 hour after this fam­ily arrived, I was called to rush baby Jorgina to the hos­pi­tal (Baby Jorgina and fam­ily are next door neigh­bors to the triplets). Baby Jorgina was vom­it­ing, hav­ing dysen­tery, along with a very high fever and rapid res­pi­ra­tions. The Doc­tor met me at the emer­gency room, and we spent an hour sta­bi­liz­ing her for dehy­dra­tion and pneu­mo­nia. PTL the hos­pi­tal just received a ship­ment of med­i­cines, so they are back in busi­ness. With a baby in the hos­pi­tal, you must have 2 moth­ers to sit with her at all times (so one can take a break), as well as bring all your own food and sup­plies. It’s quite a job to orga­nize all this and get them set­tled into their hos­pi­tal room.

While at the hos­pi­tal, the staff told me that they were out of food for the patients. The doc­tor con­firmed this when I asked, so back to the barns I went to fetch corn , beans, and fire­wood, as the patients had noth­ing to eat. The Doc­tor was too shy to ask, so I told him when that food ran out, CALLME and I’ll bring more. He was quite taken by sur­prise when I stated: “Help­ing those in need is one of the rea­sons Jesus sent me here”. THAT got his atten­tion, and I could see him think­ing about it, so I was thrilled.

It’s now 3pm, Sat­ur­day, and all is finally calm around here. I can’t tell you how happy we are that these triplet girls are finally safe in our care. With­out our for­mula and intense assis­tance and train­ing, these tiny bun­dles of joy would not make it to 30 days of age.

QUIETPLEASE.…BABIESSLEEPING!

BEAUTIFULTRIPLETS, SOUNDASLEEP

Thank you to my many friends on Face­book who fol­lowed my daily post­ings and prayed for these triplets all week. When an event as intense as this one hap­pens, I will post it on both my Brenda Sue Lange and the Orphans Unlim­ited Face­book pages. If you’d like to get these post­ings via one of these FB pages, please send me a friend request.

PLAYGROUNDDONATEDBYICMEMPLOYEESINKANSAS

We were super blessed when an e-mail arrived a week ago stat­ing that our prayers for a play­ground had been answered by the won­der­fully gen­er­ous employ­ees of ICM in Wichita, Kansas. Each year these men and women give their boss, Dave, a “gift” by donat­ing to one of his favourite char­i­ties. We have been super blessed by this gift, and wasted no time get­ting started on the plat­form that will sup­port a slide and 4 swings.

All this must be hand­made from con­crete as much as pos­si­ble, as the ter­mites try to rule our area. Any­thing made of wood that goes into the ground will be totally con­sumed within a year. Eric will help us put on the fin­ish­ing touches for the swing mounts and the see saw when he returns from RSA in early Jan­u­ary. In the mean­time, our con­struc­tion crew is dodg­ing rain storms while build­ing the main sup­port pillars.

This con­struc­tion crew is hav­ing a great time work­ing between rain storms.

P.S. Was a good thing we had our Christ­mas party last week, as it poured on Christ­mas Day, mak­ing any kind of out­door activ­ity impossible.